This Suburban Satire Looks Familiar: Why, Its Got Princeton All Over It!

Matthew Hersh

A suburban white man driving down an endless suburban street, flipping the radio dial to what could only be some garden variety conservative talk radio show (“Bill Clinton is ruining this country, you hear me? Ruining this country!”) when he spies a pair of youths, one black, one white, walking down the street listening to gangster rap. The suburbanite appears to be on the brink of an Angry White Man meltdown when he decides to embrace the youthful defiance, buys some gold chains, a wool cap, some shades, and becomes transformed: empowered by his new material worth.

So goes the 1990s-period short film, Matthew, written and directed by brothers Sean and Jason Glassman, both Princeton natives and Princeton High School graduates. A dark comedy offering a modern look at the 1990s-style “me generation” pastiche, Matthew, at an economical 25 minutes, takes a quick look at what happens to a dysfunctional family struck by tragedy, and their equally foolish attempt to forget about that tragedy.

The Glassman brothers, who graduated from PHS in the era their film encapsulates, have filmed a terrifying slice of suburban life, all with the Princeton backdrop. No spoiler alert necessary here, but the basic premise revolves around parents Carol and Fred (the white suburbanite in the car), and their misguided concern for their early adolescent son, Matthew, when his good friend, Christine Brownbridge, suddenly vanishes. Beginning as an amusing indictment of how the McMansion-era nuclear family deals with tragedy, like finding hip-hop, or cucumber facials, the film quickly turns into troubling portrait of death and mendacity.

Shot in Princeton, Matthew is replete with scenes at the Princeton Shopping Center, Princeton Battlefield, the familiar Township-style housing developments, and even deer, tagged for inventory. It’s not an indictment of Princeton, however.

“We wanted to make something that was pretty twisted: something that looks ordinary, turns horrific, but then nothing comes of it,” said Jason, 29. “We were looking to point to people’s faults, but have a little fun with this subtle satire.”

With both brothers working in the film industry in New York City (Sean is a film and video editor and Jason works in the production department of an ad agency), Matthew came naturally because the pair had been working together for years. Now, after about two years of writing and production, they are shopping the film at area film festivals, and hope to get a spot in the Trenton Film Festival (www.trentonfilmfestival.org) this May. With Matthew, the Glassmans think they have a good product on their hands.

“Every time you make a film you throw caution to the winds and you see what happens, and with this, we got some good actors, who gave some good performances, and we’re definitely proud of this film,” Sean, 31, said.

The filmmakers see Matthew as revealing bigotry and selfishness, “even in the most well-meaning, well-educated people,” Sean said. “There’s always some innate distrust of others and this film could be regarded as a form of social commentary — absurd, but commentary nonetheless.”

Loosely based on a north Jersey missing persons case, Matthew focuses on the lives of the title character’s parents Carol and Fred (Julie Kessler and Andrew Whitney), who seemingly worry more about themselves than they do about their son Matthew (Benjamin Kaplan), who has lost a cherished friend. They pay little attention to the community-wide anger brewing toward the perceived assailant/scapegoat: a cross-dressing convicted sex offender name Huck Hundley (Johnny Francis Wolf). Rather, as shallow as Carol and Fred are, they come close to blaming themselves, but for the wrong and most superficial reasons.

“The movie was based on the impressions given by tabloid news, a channel 7, late night news look that’s horror story after horror story,” Sean said. “But the more you watch it, it becomes morbid humor in the way these stories are strung along.

“This story is absolutely inspired by the news,” he added.

Indeed, the real-life NBC reporter Pei-Sze Cheng (a college buddy of Jason’s) reports the news throughout the movie, going from quoting stocks, to horrendous crime, to how to lose weight all in the same breath.

“If you don’t put these things back into context, it can really upset you in a lot of ways,” Sean said. “Without a value system, it’s easy to wash your hands of this stuff.”

A grim outlook it’s true, but in a dark sense, a very dark sense, the Glassmans’ are having fun, continuing to throw caution to the wind.

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